Risk managing tail-risk seekers: VaR and expected shortfall vs S-shaped utility

John Armstrong and Damiano Brigo

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2019, vol. 101, issue C, 122-135

Abstract: We consider market players with tail-risk-seeking behaviour modelled by S-shaped utility, as introduced by Kahneman and Tversky. We argue that risk measures such as value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) are ineffective in constraining such players, as such measures cannot reduce the traders expected S-shaped utilities. Indeed, when designing payoffs aiming to maximize utility under a VaR or ES risk limit, the players will attain the same supremum of expected utility with or without VaR or ES limits. By contrast, we show that risk management constraints based on a second more conventional concave utility function can reduce the maximum S-shaped utility that can be achieved by the investor. Indeed, product designs leading to progressively larger S-shaped utilities will lead to progressively lower expected constraining conventional utilities, violating the related risk limit. These results hold in a variety of market models, including the Black Scholes options model, and are particularly relevant for risk managers given the historical role of VaR and the endorsement of ES by the Basel committee in 2012–2013.

Keywords: Optimal product design under risk constraints; Value at risk constraints; Expected shortfall constraints; Concave utility constraints; S-Shaped utility maximization; Limited liability investors; Tail-risk-seeking investors; Effective risk constraints; Concave utility risk constraints (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 G11 G13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426619300160
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:101:y:2019:i:c:p:122-135

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2019.01.010

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Banking & Finance is currently edited by Ike Mathur

More articles in Journal of Banking & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().